Does God value truth? Zech 8:16-17, “These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord.” Apparently, God hates anything short of The Truth. What more is there to say?
Unfortunately, there is much more to say, for today, we are surrounded by lies being passed on as the truth. The confusion about what really is The Truth is overwhelming. So, can man create a truth better than God’s? Is 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” It seems pretty clear, man creates ever-changing opinions, and they are never better than the never-changing The Truth God has already given us, Prov 14:8, “The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.” We are not smart enough, nor honest enough, to create a better Truth, no matter how loud we scream, and any attempt to change The Truth of God will end in tragedy, Gal 1:8-9, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
So, why then do we try to create our own truths? Ps 58:3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.” We go astray because we are born selfish and never learn to reason with God, which would have freed us from the bondage of selfishness to the joy of salvation. Lying is just one of the sins, produced by selfishness, that leads us astray. The solution is simple, God asks us to reason with Him by studying His Word, which allows us to use our newly acquired knowledge to move closer to Him and The Truth; and away from sin, 2 Tim 2:15, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Rightly dividing the Word of Truth means we wrestle with God’s Word until our understanding shows there are no conflicts within His Word. If we still see conflicts, we must continue reasoning. His Truth leads us to our spiritual nature and His Holy Spirit, whom the Father has sent to guide us, Jn 16:13, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” The Holy Spirit is not rewriting The Truth; He is only guiding us to it.
God asks us to verify everything that is brought to us as truth, even when the person bringing it seems to be an expert, even when God Himself brings it to us, 1 Thes 5:21, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” God asks us to verify everything, even what He tells us, however, the non-believers want us to trust them and accept everything they tell us. They do not want us to verify what they tell us, they want our unreasoned, unchallenged obedience. God calls us to freedom, which requires our reasoned actions and the non-believers who call us to trust them without verifying or questioning are in direct conflict with God’s Truth. When we truly verify everything, we are then called by God to keep what we know to be good and true, foremost in our minds, Phil 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Those leading us away from God with their lies want us to have faith in them, even though they are selfish and trying to benefit from our ignorance. Merriam-Webster defines "ignorance" as “the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness.”
It is interesting to note that God told us hundreds of years before it became a reality, that there would always be a battle between what some present as science and God’s Word, 1 Tim 6:20-21, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.” False science has brought us thousands of false truths to oppose the Bible, and each time these false truths turned out to some human trying to disprove God’s existence. Like the time we were told people called Hittites never existed even though God told us about them in Gen 15:18-21. In 1884 William Wright found evidence of their existence, and then in 1906, Hugo Winckler found a royal archive containing 10,000 tablets, at what was the ancient city of Boğazköy, which has since been identified as the capital of the Hittites. We must ask ourselves, 'why did people point out the fact there had not yet been proof of the existence of Hittites?' Do we think the non-believers of that day were truly interested in reasoning with God? And, now that the proof of the Hittites existence exposed yet another mistake of man, why has it not led non-believers to now accept The Truth? How many times will they have to be wrong, before...?
There are so many examples of people trying to discredit the Bible, it would be easy to write a weekly blog focused only on exposing them. And, within the next month, I will write a blog dealing with the lie of evolution, using real science to disprove this lie. God asks us to prove all things; finding examples of these lies might be a good exercise for each of us to experience, so I invite you to search the Internet and read both sides of issues where science claims to have proven Biblical errors. Of course, if there is a God and the Bible is His Word given to us to find our way to Him, how could there be any errors? When we refuse to reason with the lies people willingly tell us, we will be without excuse on the day of judgment, Rom 1:20, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:." For there is too much evidence in the invisible parts of the things which He created. All we have to do is reason with The Truth.
God has given us His Truth to reason with so that we might be able to discern the real Truth, Acts 17:11, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” He calls us to reason with His Word daily, He does not call us to blind faith. So, who is trying to hide The Truth from us? 2 Cor 4:3-5, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.” The Truth of the gospel can only be preached for Jesus’ sake, never for our own personal gain. It is Satan and his servants who are trying to get us to twist The Truth, in an attempt to lead us away from God, and/or because they are trying to use God's Word, for their own personal profit.
Eph 4:15, “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” There is no reason to become self-righteous when speaking The Truth of Christ, it is not our truth, it is The Truth, and Jesus died to give it to us while we were yet sinners, Rom 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God wants us to humbly give an answer based on The Truth, 1 Pet 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” and to always do it lovingly, Jam 3:17, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” Without hypocrisy means we live The Truth of the Holy Spirit, which we so willingly share with others, Gal 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” This is important because people are watching what we do, to help them decide whether they should reason with God, or not, and too many have presented The Truth without living it. We cannot become the stumbling blocks who prevent others from finding salvation, Rom 14:13, "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way."
Jn 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Why does The Truth arouse such hostility? Because people are afraid of what they do not understand and they have chosen to remain ignorant regarding God’s Word, 1 Cor 1:18, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
Here then is The Truth that will lead us to Jesus, 1 Cor 15:3-4, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:” Once we believe He rose from the grave, the rest of the mystery of Christ comes into clear view, Rom 10:9, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
God’s feeling about The Truth can be summed up in this verse, 3 Jn 1:4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” and Peter and John tell us how to respond to those who try to change it, Acts 4:19, “ But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” Amen!
If you have comments about the blog you just read, want to express an opposing opinion, have suggestions for future topics, and/or want me to email you the blog weekly, email me at bill@reasoningwithgod.com.